How Old is That Building?

One of the areas that is captured the most is Broadgate but working out which pre photography images are genuine is very frustrating. One of the first you, and certainly I came across, is this one of the Cross. Courtesy of our Rob via Coventry Digital, I love it but it's entirely fake. Even the Cross itself is a mediocre copy of genuine sketches. The styling of the buildings is somewhat off and the building on the right looks positively French. You can detect building differences between various regions of the country. Coventry's ancient buildings more closely resemble those in Suffolk and Kent than say Cheshire or Lancashire. Despite local styles, you'll often see modern computer games showing distinctly European medieval buildings, when the locations are supposed to be English. When did you see a castle built out of red sandstone in a reconstruction, and yet one of the most interesting ones, Kenilworth, is most definitely a red head.

You are quite right Helen, as Rolph Hellberg, who was the architect of the Cross replica, told me this one you have shown was so inaccurate it would never stand up. Presumably artistic licence is the reason!

A good example of fake buildings below. They do a fairly good job of pretending to be modernised Georgian buildings. However looking at the maps it's possible to determine that they didn't exist until Corporation Street was built. They were right on the corner of Fleet Street. The route now blocked here. Built after 1937 but there by 1939.

An example of what looks like a brick building but probably started out as timber is the following from West Orchard. The potential clue that it was much older is the Troughton sketch of the front, showing diamond leaded glass in the mid level windows. To add to the evidence that it was an early timber building the Goad Fire Insurance map denotes that east half was a mix of brick and timber. I assume that the reason it doesn't specify the same for the other half is because it wasn't one of their properties. Looking at the back, it seems like you can see evidence of the internal timbers? The Fire insurance maps are very useful finding the early timber buildings although they don't pinpoint all of them. Is it likely that the west side of this building wasn't built at the same time as the east side? No. To see how the building might have originally looked, you only have to turn to the west to its neighbour. It seems that when they wanted to 'improve' a timber building, they had a choice to make when it came to where they started the new brick wall. A common habit was to use the front of the second storey as the guide. For a jettied building, that meant pulling out the ground floor and cutting off any upper levels. This would mean that the pavement got narrower, although sometimes the pavement had already been obstructed by goods and perhaps even a little extension. Shops would have originally had shutters that swung down to create sales counters, so the space was already in use by the business. You can see the effect of the changed street line in the map above. The ancient timber buildings to the east are set back slightly from the brick fronted buildings to the west. In much later years, that built out front could readily take a large glass display window, because the floor above was already supported by the original jetty. Only the weight of the brick front needed to be supported by a beam. Often the original door location stayed in the same place, creating a distinctive recess, framed by glass display spaces. Whether by habit or because it was useful as a porch, the recess was duplicated in later brick built shops. Why were many of these buildings not flagged as ancient before they were demolished? I think the reason is that until dendrochronology, they just didn't know how old they were. There was a fair bit of recycling and repair, so it was hard to tell whether an old piece of wood was in its original location.

In the early 1900s there was a burst of interest in the medieval/Tudor/Elizabethan. They were refurbishing some of the original timber buildings and constructing new mock Tudor properties. There was a lot of work done on the Spon chapel (for which there are some excellent drawings at the Hebert). Dovecot House on the corner of Derby Lane and the Spicerstoke was going to be improved and would be complimented by the newly built Prudential building on the corner with Broadgate. That in turn book ended the view of Trinity church with what is now Wetherspoon's Flying Standard on the corner of Priory Row. Smithford Street saw a number of updated timber buildings. The first photo shows a group that were all timber framed, including the Lion Stores, but the nearest building had been brick faced and had lost its gables and jetties (done in the 1800s). The second photo shows the mock timber makeover of the 1900s to the Lion Stores. The building didn't survive the city's desire to modernise however and was replaced before the war, as can be seen by this photo of the bomb damage. More to follow.

I'll start with a favourite view of mine. A favourite because it shows 3 or 4 ancient buildings but I include it here because it shows a known datable view of the Governor's Residence as part of the County Hall in 1819. There are suggestions that the residence was built in 1830 but we know from this picture that it predates that. We see that it has that odd upper storey that has always looked like an add on to me. Looking at the real thing on Google here am I kidding myself that the upper level is aging differently? Walking round to Pepper Lane it seems to me that the windows are slightly differently dressed to those below, but maybe it's all co-incidental? The following picture is made up of sections of three old paintings/sketches of the same section of Pepper Lane. One is not like the others but is strangely detailed for a fictional interpretation of the view. The third supposedly dates to about the 1830s, when the artist was in his 80s. We know that he can't have seen this view in the 1830s because the upper floor was definitely there in 1819. The blurb with the painting says that the artist was copying older sources. I don't know of any picture that shows this smaller Governor's Residence but why would the artist invent these buildings (including a dormer window in the most distant building)? The bigger painting shows details that tie in with other old images but none of them contain all the same features, so it's not a copy of them. Is this painting showing an earlier view of the residence to the County Hall (built in 1783), a view from before the Governor's Residence was built or a made up view. I'm leaning towards an earlier view of the residence because it includes the funny roundish window at the top of the gable. Was the Governor's Residence a different date to the Hall? So my question is - is the top storey of the Governor's Residence of County Hall as old as the rest of it?

This little Baptist Chapel in Court 7 of Jordan Well pops up every now and then. My assumption was that it was built in the 1700s but looking through a detailed history of the city, it was possibly erected in 1655 (unless the original was rebuilt and given the state of it, I think not). The front windows were originally two tall openings but bricked up later, probably when the structure was repurposed as two and then 4 dwellings. Also bricked up was a small circular window on the level of the top two arched windows and potentially the door comprised the double doorways with a more arched lintel at the top. The changes are more apparent on sketches and paintings of the building but only one shows what might have been a larger arch for the front doorway. The two photos below show the building just before it was demolished to make way for the Gaumont and the other buildings on the corner of Whitefriars Street. There was obviously a pair of fancy faux pillars up either side, albeit very decayed by the time the photo was taken. I see no evidence of other embellishments but 250 years could have erased them.

One of the best sources of early images of the city is the Aylesford collection mostly from the late 1700s and early 1800s. The exact location of Bridgeman's house was somewhat in doubt but looking at a section of the collection picture of the house and combining it with other information it becomes obvious. I've mentioned this before but here I include the additional details. The eight windows along the upper floor of the Chequers pub and the two dormers on the building to the left can be seen in the painting. The two sketches are from the kids' collection from the 1860s. One shows one of the dormers and the pub and the other shows both dormers and a lamp. L for lamp appears on the smaller of the maps as it sticks out over the open space left by the demolished house. The 1850 map shows the gated break in the wall that can be seen in the same sketch. The photograph shows the Chequers pub did indeed have eight windows albeit two of them hidden by the sign. No two images seem to match with doors and windows changing over the decades but added together, they add up to a definitive location. The 1850 map shows the building with the dormers is set forward from the pub. In a photo it was brick fronted. The kids' sketches shows roof timbers. Pulled together these details suggest that the building was timber but re-fronted with brick, rather than built in brick from the start. Addendum - the Fire Insurance Map has this as a brick and timber building.

Oh, that's marvellous detective work, Helen! Looking at the Scottish overlaid maps would I be right in thinking that our current Police Station now stands on that spot? Although the station would appear to be on the "wrong" side of the road, the post-war straightening out of Little Park Street from Cow Lane / Salt Lane downwards now places the old west side under the east !!

It looks right. LOL, that would make for a bemusing before and after.

A few facts I have gleaned from the CET on the newspaper site. Hopefully will agree with your findings Helen ! There is an article in September 1975 about a painting of Bridgeman's House by Sydney Barnett. The reason he decided to paint the house which stood for 200 years until the early 1800's was that after it was demolished No's 26 and 28 were built on the site in 1900. Number 26 came into the ownership of a printer, Mr Joseph R Austin, whose daughter is now Mrs Barnett, wife of the artist. And he worked for Mr Austin and lived there from 1823 to 1939. He remembers a crypt like basement which were once part of Bridgeman's House and they are probably under the lawns of the telephone exchange (1975). In 1862 there is an advert for an Establishment for young ladies at Banner House 28 Little Park Street. The house numbers seem to get confused over the decades. In 1901 J R Austin is living at 26. 27, 28 and 29 are residences and 31 is occupied by Millerchip and family and he is a publican, so probably the Squirrel. In 1911 Austin is still at 26 with his printing works, there is a Wagstaffe family at 27, and 28 is the Banner House Club run by James Henry Tilly. And the Squirrel Inn at 31. There are other articles about boys playing in Bridgeman's House before it was demolished and people taking wood away when they wanted to. There is mentioned a wide entrance at the north side of Bridgeman's House and then you turned left to what was the front of the house in its own courtyard, which was agreed could be correct as there is no entrance on the street side. It was widely believed that Banner House was next to Bridgeman's House and the layout of Banner House suggested that it may have been an annex to it. There is also mention of a well behind it.

All interesting Anne but not all of it accurate in respect to Bridgeman's House. Bridgeman's was to the south of the Chequers PH which on the Fire Insurance maps was at 36 and the building with the dormers was at 37. Banner House was further north and separated by too many buildings to have a connection. Bridgeman's was much more than the timber building you see. The recessed Georgian building and the partially shown three storey brick building to the left of the paintings were possibly part of it too or at least it all ended up in the same hands. The whole lot were demolished together, leaving a massive empty plot that can be seen in the Board of Health Map. The Coventry Machinists Co was built on the site, which ran from LPS to Cheylesmore. The block to the south of Banner House was empty in the Bradford Map but the space to the south of the Chequers PH was filled, which tie in with the house still being standing at that time. It also shows the recessed Georgian block. I have a possible candidate oil painting that might fit the Banner House plot and its neighbours before the house was built but I have no provenance on when the painting was created or if it's genuinely LPS like was claimed. Banner House was part gabled timber building and the rest doesn't look contemporary to the Georgian recessed building next to Bridgeman's House. It looks a later style. There was a well on the BoH map at the south end of Bridgeman's plot but they also found a well when they cleared the land to the south of Banner House to build a road. While there was a public well outside the LPS gate, the street may have more than a normal number of private wells due to the wealth of the residents. Since the Georgian buildings were possibly part of Bridgeman's House, you can see a front door but the timber building has an odd double doorway to the right, which may have been a carriage way to a rear courtyard. It would have fit with a pre Georgian design. I have sketches of some of the grand interior of Bridgeman's House but no decent images of the rear or any courtyard. As part of the evidence that the Georgian recessed building was part of the main house, look how new, Georgian windows have been created to look onto the recess. You can tell that the recess has been made by demolishing a timber building and redecorating the rear building. Leaving scars on the main timber building, which are easier to see on some of the versions of the view than others. There is so much guesswork (including mine) about the city but I have an advantage sometimes because the good info (like a map) is now much easier to access.

I bow to your knowledge Helen, you have studied it far longer than me. I wonder what would have been at number 26 then and possibly 27 as Banner House was number 28. The man who did the painting must have got it wrong as the printer's was obviously not built on the Bridgeman plot as he was told but there was a crypt basement.

I don't think that your research is in any way wrong but the city history has been subject to earlier guesses. Some thought that Bridgeman's was next to Kirby House. Only by tracing each building have I been able to get this far. Sometimes it's a process of elimination... and revision, when new info comes along. The newspapers are often a source of something new. 26 and 27 29 and 30 were an empty plot in 1749 (Bradford map). While there are some empty plots on the 1610 map, that area doesn't look like it was one of them. 140 years is plenty time for a building or several to be demolished. I have a copy of an oil painting that shows a very different set of buildings but including a gabled property. Behind them there looks like a spire and Greyfriars would fit. The artist seems set back from the road and diagonally opposite the house there was a gap in the properties. There was a small two storey property next to the gabled building, that looks suitable to be demolished. If the painting was genuine then a lot of demolition and rebuilding happened after the painting but before 1749. 29 27 would have had a double bay front but there's no evidence of that by 1850. That there was a crypt is in itself an interesting titbit.

I have found number 26 for sale in 1867 as a genteel establishment, a description of the property says it has 3 cellars. It had been an educational establishment